Colin Mochrie and Brad Sherwood, LIVE! A Dream Came True

Black Dog Easy Evenings @ The Lalit Ashok, Bengaluru on 29th March, 2016

"Just sit back and enjoy while me and Brad improvise our way through the next hour and a half trying to figure out what the crap is going on" was more or less what Colin Mochrie said after the initial introduction, right before they got on with the first game of the evening.

It still felt like some bizarre day dream, that I was sitting in the audience, with a clear view of the stage on which some of my favorite improv comedy legends, Colin Mochrie, and Brad Sherwood. As I hung onto my seat, doubling up with laughter, with stitches in me sides, watching them be hysterically funny with their quick wit and innuendos, just like all those hundreds of hours I spent on YouTube watching and re-watching every video I could find of Whose Line Is It Anyway AND Drew Carey's Improvaganza.

The tickets were expensive(INR3750), but they included unlimited drinks and food by the organizers, WHICH unfortunately I reached too late to make the most of, but that is a rage blog for another time. I was still in the Category 2 section which meant I won't have even a chance of being called up as a volunteer for the games, but I was okay with that.

The opening act was Indian Comedian Anu Menon, who I'd heard off but didn't remember where from(Lola Kutty on Channel V). It was good to hear comedy from a female outlook of life, even though most of her material was about making fun of Gujjus as her husband is one, but hey, it made the audience laugh and that's all that counts.

After her crisp 30 minute set, the duo everyone had come to see, Colin  and Brad were introduced and being naturally funny, jokes and wit came more easily to them than just saying a hello. They mentioned their previous tour to India about 5 years ago and the name change since to Bengaluru which Brad said sounded like a mix between a tiger and kangaroo with a mime and now that's what I always imagine when I hear or say the city's name.

After the introductions, we got right into it, starting off with Moving Bodies. As usual, they picked the volunteers who wouldn't be good at the game, but that's why it will be funnier and it was. Based on how Colin would start to introduce a game, I could guess which one it was from Whose Line or Improvaganza, and the volunteers and audience suggestions were at their best for out-of-the-world comments that these two turned into comedy gold. Moving Bodies was followed by Completing the Phrase where the story would turn and twist depending on how the volunteers chose to end the sentence whenever prompted by Brad or Colin. This was followed by a game I had not seen before, called Confession.

In this game, Brad wore noise cancelling headphones listening to loud tracks while Colin interacted with the audience for suggestions to form an entire confession statement, that Brad would then have to figure out and say word for word, as per the hints and statements from Colin Mochrie playing the interrogator. The final statement that Brad had to guess was "I was publicly indecent with a peanut and I face painted a mushroom in Hastinapoor at the Dark Lord Planet Sellers with MC Hammer". It must have taken about half an hour, but Brad's guessing and Colin's ingenius hints not only left us in tears and giggles but also in awe of their comedic prowess.

Next for the night was Sound FX which was hilarious again thanks to how bad the volunteers were at the game. The last game was something I had seen a version of on Whose Line, but without Drew's buzzer it was on the performers to cue the beginning and the end of the singing. It was called What Do You Mean, and at whatever point in the improv story, if one of the performers says "What do you mean by that?" the other has to break into song based on the last phrase he or she had said, with support of instrumental backing tracks from the sound guys and has to keep singing till the other says "I get it". Clearly Brad was the better singer even if Colin was funnier, but the objective was simply for them to screw each other over as much as they can and it was brilliant. They were going at about 3 each, when Colin flipped it on Brad and the sound guy played the backing track for I'm Not Afraid by Eminem, and that's when Brad was forced into an improv rap, never missing a beat, riffing about everything from the night's show among other things. But Colin just never said the cue to end the song, torturing Brad, for our entertainment, and Brad kept it going for over 3 minutes, earning him a standing ovation when Colin finally ended it.

They closed beautifully with a lil song, summing up the night's jokes, and their time in the city, witty as always. As they left the stage, I felt glad to be alive and to have witnessed such legends of improv comedy perform live, and while they took the performer's bow, I bow in respect to their comedic prowess and the laughs and happiness they brought me and everyone who laughed thanks to them.